


Of Flesh and Metal

by Stargirl2703



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breakdown Lives (Transformers), Daddy Issues, Dreadwing Lives (Transformers), F/M, Family Secrets, Is it a secret identity if you dont know about the secret?, Jack Has Issues, Jack Has Powers, M/M, Miko is best friend, Mild Language, Ultra Magnus is a dick, secret identity?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25544473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stargirl2703/pseuds/Stargirl2703
Summary: Jack could have gone through his whole life without knowing who was his dad.Finding it out just made everything worse.
Relationships: Breakdown/Knock Out, June Darby/I can't say that's a spoiler, June Darby/Undisclosed
Comments: 21
Kudos: 79





	1. What Just Happened?

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is wondering, I had written a story similar to this in middle school, and yes it's still on the internet. I'm not stealing just rewriting and posting on a different platform. That being said, hope you enjoy it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack already thought Miko had a few screws loose, but now he's not sure if she has any at all.

‘Why do I follow her, again?’ Jack caught himself thinking, as he hid behind a rock with Miko while the Bots fought the Cons over a small Energon vein. Jack looked over to see Miko taking pictures of the battle after heaving herself on top of the large boulder. 

“Do you really think taking pictures for some stupid scrapbook is worth risking your life for?!” Jack asked the eccentric girl. 

Miko slowly turned to look at him before sliding down the rock. “My scrapbook is not stupid, first of all. And second of all, I never told you to follow me! It’s my decision to come here, if you’re so against it then don’t follow me!” Miko yelled back.

“Are you insane?! Do you not think before you do things, or do you just not care about your own life?” Jack retorted. Miko wasn’t really listening to him but kept arguing all the same. 

Knockout was not having a good day. 

First, he had to miss a race because Megatron ordered him to survey the progress on one of their minor Energon mines. 

Then the Bots just had to show up, and it’s not like they have any idea or care about how long it takes him to buff out scratches.

Now to top it all off, they were losing. Once the Bots started attacking they had already blocked comms, meaning backup wasn’t going to show up. Some of the Vehicons had gathered what mining equipment they could while others were fighting with him.

Preventing the Bots from getting Cybertronian mining equipment was good, but it reduced the number of the Vehicons helping him fight them off. 

Most of the equipment was gone by now, but that wasn’t what the Bots were after. Knockout knew he needed to get out of here, fast. As he continued to fight, he took notice of a couple of humans arguing behind a rock.

Knockout grinned. ‘Looks like I found my way out,’

Jack was almost ashamed that he wasn’t able to tell Knockout was coming toward them before they were snatched up in his hand.

“Let me go, you self obsessed psycho!” Miko yelled at the top of her lungs, causing the Bots to turn their heads over to the red medic.

‘Miko is stupid. Or insane,’ Jack thought as he watched her shit talk the giant robot that held their lives in his hands. 

Well, hand. 

Jack looked down. Big mistake. If Knockout were to drop them, the best outcome would be a broken bone or two. He didn’t want to think about the worst. He watched as Bulkhead tried to move closer to the Con, only to stop as Knockout turned toward him. 

“Not another step, Autobot. One more move and the fleshies get dropped,” Knockout said as he held his arm out, dangling the teens. The bots froze, though Miko didn’t seem to care about her current predicament as she kept spouting profanities.

“Listen you egomaniac with a paint obsession, if you don’t let me down, I’ll kill you myself!” She screamed as she tried to get her arms free. 

Bumblebee tried his best to sneak up on the red mech, but right before he could get close enough to try and rescue the kids Knockout heard him. Knockout dropped the duo as he turned quickly to fight the scout. 

Jack didn’t know how he did it, but he knew he did something. As he started falling, panic took over, then he felt energy leave. Like as the panic grew to a point it started blasting outward. He remembered hitting the ground, somewhere close by he heard Miko do the same.

Then his vision went black.

Arcee had seen a lot in her life. She’s fought a war, lost partners, friends, family. She lost her home too.

But never had she seen anything like this. 

As Jack and Miko started falling, a blast erupted and knocked both humans sideways. It seemed to take some of the damage of the fall, as Miko got up not long after falling. 

While the Bots were distracted by the flash, whatever it was, and making sure the humans were ok, Knockout took the opportunity to push off Bumblebee and make a run for it. While they were busy, he could get away and call for a bridge. Bumblebee let Knockout go, they could kill him another day, and it wasn’t like they had the facility or the resources to take in prisoners. 

Bulkhead rushed over to Miko, “Are you alright?” he asked, kneeling down to see if she was alright. “Yeah, I’m fine I think,” She replied, rubbing her head as she stood up, “Where’s Jack?” 

Arcee looked around for her partner, only to find him lying on the ground. 

‘No. No. Nonononono. I can’t do this. Not again,’ She thought as she bent down to pick up the teen. 

She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized he was breathing. “He’s alive, just knocked out,” Arcee told the others as she stood up with him in her hands. 

“So Knockout knocked him out?” Miko joked as Bulkhead picked her up.

Arcee decided not to comment on Miko’s pun and called in a bridge to get them out of here. Jack may be alive, but she had no way of knowing if he was hurt or not. 

Humans were fragile and Arcee had no idea how a fall like that could have hurt either one of them. 

Fowler's first reaction to two of the human civilians getting hurt in a battle wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t his proudest moment either. But in the end, he just had to make sure that they didn’t repeat this again. 

Normally he wouldn’t worry about it, as most people would learn from their mistakes.

Miko is not one of those people.

Thankfully, Miko seemed to only have a mild headache, though he wasn’t certain she didn’t have a concussion. That didn’t really worry him, as it would be easy to convince her host parents that she had done something dumb and ended up falling on her head. 

Jack was another story.

He seemed fine on the outside, more fine than he should have been honestly.

He didn’t show any signs of bruises or any broken bones, though he could also have a concussion. There was no real way to test if he had one or not here at the base, especially since he still wasn’t conscious.

If he did have a concussion, Fowler had no idea how to explain this to his mom. Jack wasn’t the type of kid to get in fights or try something dumb. He was only there because he wanted to make sure Miko wouldn’t die from her bad decisions. 

Fowler decided not to do anything until Jack woke up. Though he hoped he would wake up soon; explaining both a concussion and why he was missing for a few hours would just make it harder to arouse suspicion. 

Luckily, Jack woke up within the next hour, with the headache of a lifetime. Fowler didn’t have much to offer, but he had Arcee run him to the convenience store to get some ibuprofen for Miko earlier. 

Jack didn’t really know how to explain to his mom that he might have gotten a concussion, but his head hurt too much to try to plan out an excuse at the moment. He also was really glad that Arcee drove herself; he was certain that if he had to actually drive himself he would have crashed. 

Considering the health risks, Jack didn’t go to sleep, though at this point that’s all he really wanted to do. 

He tried to sit through “Let’s Make A Deal” reruns but as the medicine started to kick in, the more he started to think about what happened earlier. The others told him there was a flash before they hit the ground, did that have anything to do with what he felt? He hadn’t caused it, right? How could he; he was just a teenager working a dead-end job.

Jack didn’t hear his mom come in, between the tv that he forgot was still going and being deep in thoughts he must have missed the sound of the garage door.

“Jack, what are you still doing up? You have work and school tomorrow and it’s almost midnight,” June asked. 

She wasn’t angry, more concerned as Jack was a responsible kid most of the time. He knew he had things to do tomorrow, and he never really stayed up late anyway. 

“I... fell earlier today and hit my head on a curb,” Jack answered slowly, both from the headache that was still there despite the medication, though much more manageable, and having to come up with a lie on the fly.

“I don’t know if I have a concussion or not, so I decided that I shouldn’t sleep until you could look at it,” 

“You should have come to the hospital then! Brain damage isn’t something you should take lightly, Jack!” June exclaimed while rushing over to her son who was just standing up from the couch.

“If I didn’t think it was important then I would have gone to sleep two hours ago,” Jack replied while bending his head down to let his mother see. 

From what June could see, absolutely nothing happened. There was no visible bruising on him, there wasn’t any blood on his head, his eyes responded normally to light, and there weren’t any signs as to where he hit his head. 

‘At least his dad’s good for something,’ June caught herself thinking. She brushed the thought aside. 

He wasn’t involved with this. 

Or anything to do with their lives really. The last time he showed up was when Jack was six, and the lasts time they’d ‘talked’ was when he was eight. 

“Well, it doesn’t look like you have a concussion, but let me know how you feel when you wake up tomorrow. If you get a bad headache you shouldn’t go anywhere, alright?” June stated as she looked Jack in the eyes. 

Jack nodded and headed off to his bedroom. He really didn’t want to miss work or school, but if his head hurts as bad tomorrow as it did today he was going to call out anyway. 

As he collapsed onto his bed, Jack almost didn’t think he was going to get any sleep. Thoughts of why and how flooded his head as he laid there in the dark. ‘It had to be something Knockout did right?’ Jack thought, ‘Yeah, he was in a corner and needed a way out.’ 

Whether that was actually the case or not, and Jack had an unfortunate feeling that wasn’t, it was enough for him to get it off his mind for the moment and get some, much-needed, sleep.


	2. Predatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoever it was who was chasing him, she made Arcee scared.
> 
> That was enough for Jack to be more than terrified.

Jack knew that the Bots had been through a lot. They had been fighting a war for multiple millennia, there’s no way they were going to go through all that and be perfectly fine. 

But there had to be something seriously wrong for Arcee to be this shaken up.

She had been fine up until she went into the ship, whoever it belonged to had to be someone she knew personally. Arcee wouldn’t tell him anything, all she said since leaving the ship was “Stay here.”

Jack huffed as he climbed out onto the other side of the gorge. He wasn’t going to just let her run off without him, whether she considered him a partner or not. He could handle this. I mean, it couldn’t be worse than the time with Knockout, right?

As Jack caught up with the motorcycle, he realized just how wrong he was. 

There was another femme that had Arcee trapped in something that looked like webbing; fitting as the femme, which he assumed was a con, had multiple spear-like appendages that she was using as legs. It didn’t look like she had legs at all, but she was a transformer so there was no way to know for sure.

Jack’s common sense told him to run, but Jack didn’t have to listen. So he didn’t.

“Arcee!” He called out to her as he ran over to where she was trapped.

“I told you to wait for me!”

“Well partners don’t ditch partners,”

“Get this through your head--We’re not partners; you’re a liability,” Arcee said as she looked down at the stubborn teen trying to help her escape.

Jack looked her in the eyes, “I don’t believe you. You’re afraid, Arcee, and you’re never afraid.”

Arcee went quiet for a moment, a faraway look crossed her face before she replied.

“You’re right, I am afraid,” She started, “Of losing you.”

Jack’s attention was pulled back to the spider looking femme behind him when he heard her start to speak.

“You sure have trouble hanging on to your partners, don't you?” Airachnid started as she moved closer, “We both know what happened to Tailgate. But I recently picked up some Decepticon radio chatter regarding the passing of Cliffjumper. At some point you really have to ask yourself, Arcee, ‘Is it them, or is it me?’.”

Arcee turned her attention back to Jack, “Do you get it now, Jack? She's not interested in me. She hunts indigenous species, and she's on earth. That means humans. You! Run!” She yelled. 

Jack started running as best he could. He was never really a physical person, though he doubted even Usain Bolt could outrun a transformer. He heard Arcee scream his name from somewhere behind him. He ran faster. 

Faster. Faster

“That's the spirit, Jack. Play hard to get,” He heard the femme, a Decepticon he assumed, call out from behind him.

He had to hide. If he couldn’t outrun her maybe he could hide. Sure, she probably had centuries of hunting other species behind her back, but there was no way he could outrun someone who could turn into a vehicle.

Jack kept running. The sound of the femmes footsteps kept him running, though his lungs were burning. ‘A log!’ Jack thought as he came across a fallen tree. Maybe he could hide behind it and wait for her to pass before running in the other direction. 

He dove behind the tree and held his breath. He could hear her, getting closer. Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Jack stopped breathing. She was right above him. If he breathed he was dead.

It seemed like forever before she finally started to move again. She started to walk further ahead. ‘Please keep going, please keep going. Please please please,’ Jack thought as she paused just a few feet in front of him. 

“Hello, Jack,” She said as she dropped her head in front of his face.

It wasn’t Knockout.

The moment she dropped in front of him the panic exploded again. But this time he saw what happened.

When the burst happened there was a flash, but it blessed the femme back a good twenty feet.

Jack didn’t wait for her to get herself together enough to grab him. He was running again, and there was the gorge. With nowhere else to run, he started climbing down, hoping that whatever happened back there kept her down for a while. 

Well this was certainly interesting. Airachnid had never seen another creature capable of such a thing. Were all humans capable of such feats, or was she just lucky enough that Arcee’s new human partner was? 

She supposed, in the end, it didn’t matter. His head would still be mounted in her ship by the time she was done with him.

Jack heard when she crossed the gorge. “Well I was going to say this was getting boring, but you are just full of surprises aren’t you, Jack?” He heard her call out into the forest.

He kept running until he saw the wreckage of her ship. Running over, he hid behind a piece of metal. Her footsteps started getting louder once again.

“Now, where did you scamper off to?” She said playfully. Jack doubted she didn’t know where he was, but he heard her footsteps leave all the same. He took his chance and took off to the other side of the ship.

Just as he rounded the corner, he heard her drop from what he assumed was from on top of the ship into the entrance. “If you wanted a tour, Jack, all you had to do was ask. Did you spot the empty space?” She asked, “I hope you like it. It's where you'll soon hang your head,”

Jack’s blood ran cold, but he kept going. He could get out of this. He had to. 

As he kept moving around the ship he stepped in something. Looking down, he saw that he had stepped in a blue liquid. 

“Energon,” he thought aloud as he saw that the ship was leaking from what was probably the fuel storage. ‘Isn’t Energon flammable?’ Jack thought as he spotted a twig close by.

He knew it was probably a bad idea. If he couldn’t get away in time, he wouldn’t have to worry about Airachnid killing him. But he was going to go through with it anyway.

Jack pulled out his wilderness survival kit and grabbed the fire starter and the twig. He had to work fast, the femme would realize eventually that he didn’t go into the ship.

Almost as soon as he started to get embers onto the twig did he hear the sound of those footsteps again. Jack tried his best to ignore them and focus on the task at hand and blew onto the stick. Flames started to form and the stick lit on fire. 

As soon as he got the fire started, Jack stood up and threw the makeshift torch into the hole of the ship.

Then he ran.

He could just hear the sound of his voice being called out as the ship blew. It knocked him forward onto the edge of where the crater was.

Jack sat up and looked where the ship was. ‘And Arcee made fun of my survival kit,’ He thought to himself as he stood up and started to head toward where Arcee was.

He didn’t get far before he was slammed into a tree by the webbing he saw Arcee trapped by earlier. He looked up. Big mistake. The femme was on fire. She slinked down the tree toward him. That was going to give him nightmares

Jack was almost certain this was where he died when he had a thought. ‘What if I could blast her again?’ He wasn’t sure how to do it, but he was damned sure going to try.

He was all out of options.

Jack focused. He felt electricity start pulsating through his body, it then started to all gather in his hands and forearms. Airachnid was right in front of him now. Jack wasn’t really able to move his arms, but he could still hit her. 

The blast was larger than what he did before. Much bigger.

Jack watched as Airachnid was thrown into trees, breaking them in half, then finally skidding to a stop in a little clearing. She had to have flown a few hundred yards. The webbing was gone, the blast probably took care of that for him. He sat down, partly from shock and partly because of just how tired he was.

Arcee whizzed past him toward the currently downed femme. Jack watched as his partner got a few hits in before the spider drilled into the Earth to escape. 

The teen got up and jogged over to where Arcee was staring into the whole. “So much for closure,” She said, though it was more for herself than him. 

“How did she get all the way over here?” Arcee asked as she looked down to Jack

‘She didn’t see it.’

Jack thought about telling her what happened but decided against it. He didn’t know what happened, so how was he going to explain it?

“Maybe it was from me blowing her ship up,” He replied.

“You blew her ship up? How?”

“It was leaking Energon, and with my handy survival kit, I was able to set a stick on fire and throw it into the ship,” Jack gloated.

“Smart. Anyways, let’s get you out of here, partner. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“Partner?” 

“Junior partner,” Arcee corrected, “I can still pull rank,”

Jack had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night.

Not because of Airachnid, though she was terrifying and he didn’t like the thought of her running around and hunting humans.

‘What am I?’ Was the main thought that was keeping him up, though thoughts like ‘How did I do that?’ and ‘Why am I able to blast Cybertonians hundreds of feet?’ were close contenders.

If he was a completely normal human, there was no way he would be able to do that. Should he ask his mom? Would she tell him the truth? Does she even know?

In the end, he decided not to say anything. Even if he found a way to talk to her about it without letting her know about the bots, if she didn’t know anything she would probably think he was crazy. 

Was he sure he wasn’t in a coma that was caused by him landing on his head after Knockout dropped him?

All this started after he woke up from that, who’s to say that he wasn’t still out and just having a really bad coma dream?

Jack rolled over to look at his clock. 5:00. He sighed before getting up to take another shower. While he had taken before his mom got home so she wouldn’t worry, he knew there was no way he was going to get to sleep tonight. 

Besides, even if he did fall asleep, he had to get up in an hour for school anyway. Jack was not looking forward to tomorrow.

Well, the rest of the day, really.


	3. Shadow Zone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miko seems to the source of all of Jack's problems recently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be one chapter but then I started writing and realized that it was getting really long about halfway through so I ended splitting this into two chapters but I should post the next part either later tonight or tomorrow since I basically already have it written.

“I had hoped that my growing expertise on the subject would remain purely academic,” Ratchet’s voice pulled Jack away from his conversation with Raf. “But though faint, this is clearly a dark energon signature, and it's moving fast,” The medic finished. 

“Megatron,” Optimus said what everyone was thinking.

“Where’d he find more of the bad stuff?” Arcee asked as she walked to where Prime was standing with Ratchet.

“And what's he gonna do with it? Recruit a new army of the undead?” Bulkhead continued while following Arcee.

“Zombie cons?!” Miko called out to no one in particular.

“We cannot rule out the possibility,” Optimus answered Bulkhead, “Especially since Megatron seems to be heading to a familiar site. Megatron has barely emerged from stasis and it seems he’s already making up for lost time. Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Ratchet, prepare to roll out,” He finished while making his way toward the entrance of the ground bridge.

“Me?” Ratchet said.

“If we are dealing with dark energon, I may well require your expertise,” Optimus explained. “Arcee-”

“Bridge operator. Got it,” Arcee interjected while walking over to the control panel.

“Go get em, Bulkhead. Bring the hurt,” Miko called out to her friend as she acted uninterested and continued drawing.

Jack had a really bad feeling about this. “That’s not like Miko to not want to go,” He said to Rafael. 

“She’s definitely up to something,” The younger boy agreed.

Jack watched Miko as the bots started to make their way through the ground bridge. They had gotten about halfway through when Miko quickly sat down her drawing and utensils and started running.

“Making a break,” Jack stated as he stood up to go catch her. Miko skipped and jumped steps as she made her way down the flights to the ground floor. 

She had managed to get into the ground bridge before Jack caught her by the wrist.

“It’s not safe,” He told her. 

“I am not going to miss my first zombiecon throw down!” Miko yelled back as she ripped her wrist from Jack’s grip.

“Miko!” Jack called out for her to come back, though he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He ran after her with Raf on his heels.

Once they were through the portal they found themselves in a rocky area full of winding canyons and large rocks.

Miko continued to run and clamored up a large pile of rocks to get a good view. Jack and Raf made their way up after her.

As the bot started to engage, ‘Starscream?’ Jack thought. ‘Guess he took some dark energon from Megatron,’ He turned his attention back to Miko as she said, “Let’s see some fight of the living dead already!”

“Miko, what were you thinking?” Jack asked.

“She wasn’t,” Raf finished Jack’s thought exactly.

“Hey, I totally missed out last time! This could be my only chance to take some snaps,” Miko said as she reached for her phone, only to find nothing. 

“My cell phone! I must have dropped it back at base,”

“You didn’t even bring your phone!?” Raf tried to yell only to get a bad voice crack. Jack had to try his hardest not to burst out laughing.

“I had it when I got up from the couch,” Miko defended herself. The bots were now fighting but Jack tuned out the sounds of Starscream yelling and blasters being fired.

“Well then you had to have dropped it between the couch and the ground bridge,” Jack interjected while rolling his eyes. She endangered herself, Raf, and Jack all for some photos that she couldn’t take because she didn’t have her phone. 

Jack was beyond irritated at this point.

“You!” Miko accused as she turned to look Jack in the eyes.

“You made me drop it when you grabbed me! I can’t believe you made me lose my phone!” She yelled, then yelled louder

“Uh, how is this my fault?” Jack asked as he heard the sound of a ground bridge open.

Then he heard it again

“You three, into our ground bridge. Now!” Ratchet yelled at them. Miko’s screaming had called their attention.

There was a ground bridge right next to them, but there was also one a few hundred yards away. It seemed Starscream was running away.

Not waiting for Miko to go through by herself, Jack grabbed Miko’s arm. “Common,” As he pulled her down the hill of rocks with Raf following. Miko expressed her disappointment with an ‘Aw’, but Miko’s life meant more to Jack than her entertainment.

Just as the trio went into the ground bridge something caused an explosion, blasting them back out of the bridge and onto the ground.

“Are you guys ok?” Jack asked as the dust began to settle around them.

“Yeah, I think so,” Raf replied as he stood up and fixed his glasses.

Bulkhead’s voice pulled their attention upward. “Umm, what just happened?” 

“I can’t be certain, but if two ground bridges sent to the same coordinates cross streams, the feedback could have triggered a system overload,” Ratchet hypothesized. ‘Does he know he just made a reference or is that just coincidence?’ Jack wondered.

“Could? Hello, more like totally did,” Miko called out, having recovered from the blast. 

‘At least it wasn’t me this time,’

“The kids made it through right?” Bulkhead asked.

‘What?’

“Huh,” Raf said

“What's he talking about,”

“Bulkhead, we’re right here,” Miko said as she walked up to the mech

“Arcee, did the children make it safely back to base?” Optimus asked through comms.

‘Optimus too?’ Jack thought. ‘This isn’t good.’

There was a pause before Bulkhead replied to what Arcee had asked. “No sign,”

“What? No sign? Ok, seriously Bulk, wha-” Miko cut herself off with a scream as Bulkhead’s foot phased right through her.

Jack caught Miko who was, understandably, a little shaky.”He went right through you,” Jack thought out loud, “We’re not alive.”

“I don’t wanna be a ghost!” Raf’s voice started to shake as he spoke.

“Wait, how can we still touch each other?” Jack wondered aloud as the group continued to follow the bots.

“Ratchet, could the children have been transported onto the nemesis instead?” Optimus asked.

“Not likely. If Starscream didn’t arrive at our base, the most likely explanation is a dislocation. The children may simply have been bridged to an unintended destination,” replied the medic.

The trio slowed down to a stop as they continued to watch the others continue walking.

“Another place, but in the same place,” Raf mumbled to himself as he looked down.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked as both him and Miko turned to look at Raf

“We’re probably in a different dimension, some kind of alternate reality,” Raf explained. “A shadow zone.”

“Nerd alert,” Miko mocked as she rolled her eyes.

“Look, Skyquakes tomb is empty,” Optimus said as the bot had gathered around a large hole in the ground.

“How did we miss Skyquake rising and shining?” Bulkhead asked. There had been no sign of him rising at all, but now he’s just gone?

“It would seem Starscream got what he came for,” Ratchet said somberly as he stared at the crater.

“Another matter for another time,” Optimus spoke. “Right now our priority is locating Jack, Miko, and Rafael. Arcee, bridge us back to base.”

As the ground bridge appeared, the humans turned their heads at the sound of metal scraping. Skyquake was shambling toward the bots from one of the canyon openings, dragging his feet along and making a blood chilling noise.

“Zombie!” Miko yelled as the three of them started to run after the bots. They knew they couldn’t hear them, but they had to at least try. 

“Guys look out!”-“Bulkhead!”-“It’s right behind you!” Jack, Miko, and Raf called out, but it didn’t matter, they continued walking through the bridge.

The zombified Skyquake caught up with the bots and took a swing at Bulkhead - only to phase right through his body.

The Con took a few more swings at the group, the sounds it made were steeped in confusion. 

“Awesome, it can’t touch them either,” Miko said as she watched Skyquake fail at killing anyone. The sound drew the Cons attention, now seeing the small creatures he had walked passed. It moved away from the bots it failed to kill and started toward the humans.

“If that thing can't touch the bots,” Jack started as he watched it get closer. “Just like we can’t,” Miko followed up with, catching on to his thought process.

“Then we’re trapped in the shadow zone with a Deception zombie?!” Raf yelled as the zombiecon let out a loud groan.

“If we aren't ghosts, now we will be soon,” Miko said as she started up at the towering undead creature.

All together they started running, the Con might not have been very fast compared to the others, but with its large size and long strides it could catch up to them if they didn’t keep moving.

Jack really hoped that running from Cons wasn’t going to be a normal pastime for him, he barely managed to get away from Airachnid. The only reason he was still alive was probably because of whatever weird power thing he has going on. 

Though he didn’t like to think about that.

As they were running, Jack heard Raf trip behind him. He grabbed Raf and pulled him as they ran behind a rock wall with Miko close behind. 

“My glasses!” Raf called out. Jack stopped and looked to where they had just run from. Skyquake was getting closer and closer to the glasses by the second. 

“No way, too dangerous,” Jack said as he shook his head. Even if they could get to the glasses before the Con was on top of them, they would be way too close for comfort and there was no guarantee that they would be able to get far enough away for another break like this if they went back for them.

“I can’t see without them,” Raf tried to explain. 

“What are you, like 90?” Miko asked. “Not helping,” Jack butted in. They needed to get away from here. Like now.

“I’ll just go get them then,” Miko said as she started her way towards where they were laying. Jack grabbed her wrist before she could get far.

“No way, if anyone’s going I am,” He stated before running for the glasses, not leaving Miko anytime to argue. They didn’t have time for that, they’d already wanted time over whether or not they were going to get the stupid glasses or not.

‘What am I doing?’ Jack caught himself thinking. He was in an alternate dimension with a zombified alien robot that wanted to kill them and he was going after a pair of glasses. Not where he had seen himself going in life.

Jack grabbed the glasses, but by that time the con was above him. He managed to dodge the hand that had tried to grab him, along with the feet that landed a little too close for him to feel great about his decision. 

‘I could try to see how fast I can run,’ He thought but Jack quickly dismissed it. Even if his abilities, he would say, allowed him to run that fast, it would just leave Miko and Raf alone. He wasn’t going to do that. Not to them.

“Here’s your glasses,” Jack said as he handed the glasses back to Raf, “Now we gotta move.” 

The three started running, the zombie close enough to feel the ground shaking behind them.


	4. Skyquake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack doubts he's ever going to enjoy zombie movies again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't wait for the next chapter it's going to be so much fun to write. If you know the timeline of the show, then you might know what's coming up next.

They kept running until they got to a dead end and stopped slowed to catch their breaths.

“The good thing about zombies is they’re really slow-moving,” Miko joked as she slowed her speech and mimicked the way a tv zombie would walk.

Jack was about to say something about her being childish in a serious situation such as this, but the sound of a phone ringing distracted him.

“Is that your-” Raf started before they all yelled out “Phone!”

Jack scrambled to answer his phone. Arcee’s caller I.D shone on his screen as he answered.

“Hello? Arcee?” Jack asked, only to be met with static. He repeated himself before ending the call.

“Nothing,” Jack scoffed.

“Gee, imagine that! The fourth dimension has lousy cell phone reception,” Miko said sarcastically. 

“Wait,” Jack started as he looked at his phone, “The phone rang, we’re getting a signal.”

“Maybe, they can’t see or hear us because we're moving at hyperspeed or something,” Raf guessed.

“Do you think they could read us?” Jack asked. They were quiet for a moment before Raf spoke up with an idea.

“Text!”

“Text me! If my phone’s back at the base, maybe they’ll see it,” Miko suggested. ‘Miko finally said something useful,’ Jack thought dryly as he pulled out his phone to start texting.

“Uhh, can you type and run?” Raf asked, drawing the others' attention to the lumbering Skyquake. The undead mech let out a loud groaning yell as Jack pressed send on his rushed text. 

Now back to running. Again.

They ran for who knows how long. It was probably around 10 minutes, but Jack would be lying if he said it didn’t feel like 30. 

“Does that rock look familiar to you?” Miko asked.

“Um, no?” Jack replied. He wasn’t really concerned with the scenery right now. More focused on staying alive than rocks.

“Dude, we just ran one big circle!” Miko yelled as they turned another corner. 

“If we can just keep running until the bots see our message, then they can figure out a way to get us out of here. It doesn’t matter where we run to, we just need to keep space between us and the zombie,” Jack said. It was harder than it looked to run and talk at the same time, it just made him run out of breath faster. 

Now that Miko mentioned it, they were running in circles. They had run by the same rock 3 times before they changed up their running path. 

Big mistake.

They ended up at a dead end. At first, it was fine, they had stopped to catch their breath like last time. Jack went ahead and checked his phone. 

“Guys, the message says read! The bots saw our message!” Jack exclaimed, holding out his phone for the others to see.

“Sweet! Now we just gotta wait for them to figure out how to get us out!” Miko yelled while fist-bumping the air. Raf smiled, but Jack knew that the three of them couldn’t keep running for much longer. They weren’t exactly used to running for their lives every day.

They heard the loud footsteps of Skyquake and prepared themselves to start running again. Only to realize that this dead-end was narrower than the last one. At first, they thought that Skyquake might have been too large to fit into the small alleyway to where they were standing, but it turned out he was just small enough.

As Skyquake pushed his way past the rock walls, some parts crumbled leaving less space for the three to run out of there. 

They were trapped. Between the wall of rocks to their backs, and the pedes of the Con before them, rocks behind him making their escape options slim.

They could try to run past him like before, but it would be harder this time. They would have to dodge both his hands and run around the rocks in their path. 

Jack looked at the two beside him. Raf saw what he saw, and he was terrified. He was scared before, but now Jack could see the boy shaking. Miko looked like she was about to make a run for it.

‘Time for another bad idea,’ Jack thought as he grabbed Miko’s shoulder.

“Stay behind me,” He said as he took a step forward. Skyquake was having a harder time getting through the narrowing rock walls, but he would reach them eventually, and the closer he got the more rocks fell around him.

“What do you plan on doing, fighting him?” Miko asked, clearly as a sarcastic joke, but it wasn’t too far off from what he was planning.

Jack ignored her and started to focus. If he would blast Skyquake away like he did Airachnid, they would be fine. It would give them plenty of room to run and give the bots more time to get them out of here.

Skyquake took a step closer. Closer. 

Closer.

“Um, Jack?” Miko asked, but whatever she was going to say next was cut short by the sound of a ground bridge opening. They could hear the muffled voices of the bots as they got closer. 

Then another bridge opened right behind Skyquake. Jack could faintly make out the sound of the bots telling them to get through the bridge, but he was still focused on getting Skyquake out of their way. 

Just a little more. Almost there-

Miko noticed Jack’s hands seemed like they were glowing, about half a second before a blast of-light? She didn’t really know what it was, but it blasted Skyquake through the ground bridge.

Jack held his head as he struggled to get his balance back, it wasn’t easy to do that. He could tell Miko had grabbed him by the shoulder, at first to help him stand upright, but she pulled him into a run. Raf stayed close beside them as they ran through the ground bridge.

The bridge would normally just give Jack a moment of dizziness or nausea, but it was a lot worse now. Miko still had to make sure he wasn’t going to fall over.

When Jack finally opened his eyes, the world seemed brighter than it should have been, but he was sure it was just him. The bots had taken care of Skyquake, who looked like he was dead again. 

“Jack, Miko, Rafael, are you three all right?” Optimus asked as he walked over to them. 

“I think we’re ok,” Jack responded, standing up straight and looking at the other two. They both looked at him like he had grown a third head. Though it wasn’t unwarranted.

“How’d Skyquake go flying like that? The only other bot that was here was Starscream, and it’s not like he could throw him,” Bulkhead wondered, though it wasn’t really clear whether he was expecting an answer or not.

“Jack did it!” Miko yelled, turning to look at Jack, “How the hell did you do that?!”

“How could Jack have done it? There’s no way a human could send a bot flying, there are bots who wouldn’t be able to send him flying,” Arcee interjected.

Jack didn’t really want anyone to find out. He had hoped this was something he could take to his grave, but he wasn’t going to take Raf and Miko with him. 

“I don’t know how I do it, I just can, alright,” Jack offered his excuse of an answer. Well, it wasn’t really an excuse. He really didn't know how he was able to do it, but the answer still felt cheap nonetheless.

“You actually sent him flying?” Arcee asked skeptically. Made sense. Jack supposed if someone had told him a lanky teenager sent a multiple ton undead alien robot flying he would be more than a little skeptical. 

He could try to prove that he did it, but he was exhausted. If he tried to do something like that again, he might just pass out right here on the ground. Jack supposed he could try to play it off as a joke, but decided against it. 

‘Fuck it,’ Jack thought as he started to focus again. 

“Jack?” Arcee asked, but he ignored her. He didn’t need a lot, just enough for them to know that he could do it. He was probably going to regret this, but he was too tired to really think about the ramifications of what he was doing right now.

Opening his eyes, Jack looked around, settling on a large rock a few yards away. Miko noticed the glow again, and right before she could say anything, again Jack cut her off by blasting the rock.

The top of the rock now had a large hole in it. Rocks scattered around it as a small stream of smoke rose from the impact. 

Jack was going to say something, but the world around him began to spin and the light started to fade. He could faintly feel himself falling before everything stopped.

Jack woke up slowly, his whole body screamed at him not to get up, but he forced himself up anyway. He was back at the Autobot base. It took him a minute, but he managed to crawl out of the medbay and into the main area. 

Everyone had gathered there; Ratchet was working, Bumblebee, Miko, and Raf were all playing games on the tv, Bulkhead was spectating, Optimus and Arcee were talking on the other side of the room. 

Ratchet was the first to notice Jack was there. “How’re you feeling?” He asked walking over and picking Jack.

“Alright, I guess,” Jack answered as Ratchet sat him down on the walkway close to the elevator. 

“Are you sure?” Arcee asked as everyone started walking over to where Jack was.

“Sore, but I’ll live,”

“Jack, do you know how you’re able to do-,” Optimus started to ask, but it seemed even he didn’t know the right word to use to describe what Jack was capable of.

“No, I didn’t know I could do it until the thing with Knockout happened. And even then I thought it was something Knockout did. Until,” Jack explained, but he was a little hesitant to continue.

“Until what?” Arcee asked.

“Airachnid. I may or may not have sort of accidentally blasted her once, then blasted her a second time on purpose.”

“What?! So you didn’t blow up her ship, you just threw her through the trees?”

“No no, I blew up her ship, she just happened to live through it and came after me. Then I threw her through the trees.” Jack explained. He was proud of using his brain to blow up the ship, more proud of that instead of using weird powers he didn’t know where they came from.

“Are you sure you don’t have any idea of why?” Ratchet asked. 

“No idea,”

“Maybe humans can have rare interactions with energon that can lead to this.”   
“What makes you say that?”

“While you were passed out I was working on upgrading our energon detector. It kept giving off weird readings, at first I thought it was just a malfunction. It kept reading you as an energon signature,” Ratchet explained, picking up a handheld device he had seen Arcee use in the woods. Ratchet pointed the device at Jack, the device letting out a steady beeping. 

“Does that mean if I get close to energon I can get powers too?!” Miko yelled while jumping up from her seat on the armchair. 

“Absolutely not!” Ratchet yelled, “Even if my hypothesis is right, this is a one in a million- one in hundreds of millions of chances. Energon is extremely toxic to humans in every other instance I have studied it. If it was energon that led to Jack’s abilities, it doesn’t change the fact that if you were to try to get the same results, you will most likely end up dead on the floor.”

Miko looked disappointed, but hopefully, Ratchet's lecture got it through her head that it was a bad idea. Hopefully.

“If I’m giving off an energon signature, is it alright for me to be near anyone?” Jack asked Ratchet.

“The signature’s not strong enough to really do anything. If you get farther than a few yards away it won’t register at all. Even if you’re actually radiating energon, the level isn’t high enough to pose any danger,” Ratchet responded.

“It is getting late, the three of you should be heading home,” Optimus spoke up. Jack was for one glad he did. He was still tired and he had to work the next day anyway. 

The ride home wasn’t eventful, though Arcee expressed that she was proud of him for showing Airachnid up. Jack was just glad that they didn’t treat him any differently, and that they had a theory of how this had happened. Maybe they could find a way to reverse it once they found out exactly how it happened. Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm curious as to what you all think. Any guesses or theories? If there are I would love to hear them, but if you know what's going on because of the older story, please don't spoil it for those who haven't read it.


	5. Crisscross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cunts of a feather flock together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The same thing that happened with the last chapter happened with this one. I cut it in half, but the other half is already written and I will be posting it probably tomorrow but maybe later tonight if I feel like it.

“Thanks for walking me home, Jack. You’re a real gentleman,” Arcee said as Jack moved to open the garage.

“Moms a light sleeper, and I don’t think that she’s going to understand-” Jack started before a voice interrupted him.

“Understand what, Jack? You breaking curfew for the third time this month?” June asked. Jack turned to where his mom was standing in the garage. She’d been waiting for him.

“Mom-” Jack tried to explain, but she wasn’t done talking yet.

“Or why your boss called about you missing another shift at work. Or maybe the email from your art history teacher who’s concerned that you’ve been falling asleep in class!” June lectured.

“Well, two words, mom. ‘Art’ and ‘history’,” Jack tried to defend himself. He had been spending a lot of time at the base. Ratchet wanted to figure out what was going on with Jack, and he just liked spending time with everyone at base. But A few too many late nights left him tired, and it’s not his fault art history is the perfect thing for insomniacs to listen to. As far as work is concerned, sure, he missed a few shifts for some sleep, but he missed work because he was at the base. 

June sighed before talking again. “Tell me the rumors aren’t true, Jack. Tell me you’re not racing that motorcycle!” 

“No, no, wait. Where did you hear that?” Jack asked. He had been in, like, one race and it was against Vince and a Decepticon. It was a little warranted.

“Small town. People talk,” She answered. “I work in an emergency room, Jack. I’ve seen what can happen, so please tell me you haven’t fallen in with a bad crowd.”

A bad crowd? ‘If only you knew,’ Jack thought before he answered. “What?! No no no no. My friends are the good crowd, seriously good.” ‘Better than you know.’

“I let you have that bike because you convinced me you were mature enough to handle it, but I think you may need a gentle reminder,”

“Message received, mom. Loud and clear. I’m so glad we had this talk,” Jack answered, trying to get out of this conversation as fast as possible. He hated lying to her, but he had to. 

“I meant let’s see if a few weeks without the distraction of your motorcycle will do the trick,” June elaborated.

“But-” 

“No but’s. You’re grounded from everything but school and work, and if you want to take a bike from either, you’ll pedal” She said, pointing at his old bike. “Serious face, Jack. If I see that motorcycle out of the garage,” She left her threat open-ended, but Jack knew what she meant.

“Now go wash up and get some sleep,” She said, her face softening and kissing his head. “I love you.”

Jack waited for her to close the door to the house and walk down the hallway before moving Arcee into the garage.

“I’ll miss you while you’re grounded,” Arcee said in a sort of singsong tone.

“Arcee, if you aren't in the garage my mom is going to kill me,”

“Well sitting on my fat tires for two weeks is not an option,”

“You saw mom's serious face. Look, Arcee, I feel bad enough that I’ve had to lie to her all this time, but if you’re not here she’s going to think that I’m blowing her off,”

“Deep breaths, Jack. Your mom works late nights. I’ll try to be back in the garage before she gets home, but no promises,” Arcee said. Jack supposed that was the best he was going to get. He knew that she couldn’t stay here, the team needed her. And the Decepticons came first.

Jack’s shift wasn’t exactly eventful. He realized how much he missed being at the base. As he started to back up his bike, the good old faithful 10 speed, his phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, the caller I.D read ‘Mom’.

“Hey mom,” 

“Jack, I hope you’re not planning to eat takeout tonight” I took my break early so I could cook my grounded son a wholesome dinner,”

‘Oh shit,’ 

“Organic tofu? Awesome. Hey, car beats 10 speed, I’ll be home soon, love you, bye,” Jack quickly hung up and called Arcee.

“Come on. Pick up, pick up, pick up,” He said, listening to the ringing while waiting for her to answer.

It seemed like forever until she finally answered. “Arcee, you wouldn’t be in the garage right now, would you?”

“Negative, Jack. Can we talk about this later?” The sounds of fighting over the phone were ignored as Jack continued to talk. 

“No, mom’s on her way home. If you don’t race back there right now, I will be grounded for life and mom will make me sell you for parts,” Jack said as he pedaled as fast as he could. He briefly thought of trying to use his powers, but there were too many risks. Would he break the bike, how many people would see him, what would he tell mom if he got there first? What would he do if she found out about his powers?

He faintly heard Arcee asking for a bridge and he hung up. He made it to his house just in time to hear his mom yell.

“Jack! Jack, I can’t believe you disobeyed me,” June stomped out of the front door and stood in front of him accusingly. “Where’s the motorcycle?”

Jack looked in through the garage windows, the light of a ground bridge shone through the glass. “Uh, What do you mean? She’s right where I left her,” Jack replied, walking over and opening the garage, Arcee sitting where she had been the night before. His mom looked shocked before it changed to agitation.

“Did you get one of your crew to sneak it in, or did you just walk it up again?”

Jack sighed, he was tired of lying. “Okay, mom, do you really want to know?” He asked, this probably wasn't a good idea, but what else was he supposed to do. 

She looked at him expectantly. “Fasten your seatbelt,” He said before taking a deep breath. “My motorcycle is a sentient robotic organism from a distant planet part of a team stationed here on earth fighting a secret war, and I spend most of my time after school hanging out with her crew.” 

“Jack-”

“And she’s not even really a motorcycle, she’s actually a giant robot who can turn into a motorcycle,” As Jack explained everything he’s been keeping a secret, well most of what he’s been keeping a secret, he realized just how crazy it sounded.

June went quiet.

“Arcee, you can come out now. No more lies, no more hiding,” Jack looked at Arcee. She stayed perfectly still. “Oh come on.”

“I have to get back to work. We’ll continue this when I get home,” June said as she turned and walked to her car without looking back.

“Thanks for the support, partner,” Jack said as he watched his mom drive away.

“Don’t blame me, remember-” Arcee started. 

“I know, I know. You don’t exist,” Jack finished as he headed into the house.

June drove in silence. She made her way through the hospital to an empty room. It was far enough away from where everyone else would be at the moment, most of the day shift was already heading home. She closed the door behind her and locked it.

She wasn’t able to turn on the lights before she collapsed. 

‘He knows, he knows, he knows he knows he knowsheknowsheknowsheknowsheknows,’ her mind raced as she sat on the floor. She had tried her best to keep him away from all of this. How did this happen? He couldn’t know about everything, right? The bots don’t know, if they did they would have talked to her already.

June took a deep breath. She had things to do, staying here and freaking out wouldn’t help anyone. She spent a few minutes calming herself down before heading out to her job.

“Arcee, is mom home yet? I didn’t see her car,” Jack asked as he walked into the garage.

“Don’t know, I just bridged from base to beat her here. Oh and there’s a package for you,” Arcee replied as Jack took off his helmet and over to the manila package. He opened the package, inside was a weird-looking device. 

“Hello, Jack,” A voice came from the device.

“Silas,” Arcee replied.

“What is it? What’s going on?” Jack asked. Who was Silas? 

“MECH,” Arcee explained.

“They know where I live?!” Jack yelled. They were the ones who took Breakdown’s eye, right? What would they do to him if they got a hold of him? If they got Arcee? 

“We know things about your family that even you don’t know. For example, do you know where your mother is?” Silas asked.

“What did you?” Jack seethed. If they hurt his mom-

“Understand, Jack, we have no intention of hurting her. In fact, we’d like to reunite the two of you as soon as possible. I just need you and Arcee to follow the GPS coordinates programmed into this communicator. They’ll lead you to the temporary facility I’ve set up,” Silas explained.

Arcee moved away from the communicator.”Ratchet-,” She started to try to contact the base, but she started screaming.

“Arcee!”

“Did I not mention our communicator scrambles the signal and your brains. Any break in communication, or attempt to reach the other Autobots and Miss Darby... Well, I wouldn’t want to feel responsible for the outcome,” Silas said.

Jack and Arcee started to follow the GPS. What else could they do?

“If anything happens to her because of my connection to all this-” Jack started, but he didn’t know how to end it. He was just scared, nervous, angry. He just wanted to make sure his mom was alright.

“Jack, MECH is only interested in me. Once they get what they want, they’ll let your mom go,” Arcee tried to calm him down.

“That’s not exactly reassuring, you’re family too,” Jack said as they turned into the location on the GPS. They slowed to a stop when A large group of masked men pointed their laser sights onto Jack.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jack asked, staring down 

“The usual,” Arcee said as they drove headfirst into the group. Arcee popped up onto her back tire, her body acting as a shield for Jack. They swerved into a warehouse, Jack got off and Arcee transformed. 

“Mom!” Jack called out, not noticing the shadow that loomed over the two of them.

“Looking for June?” A voice called out from above. Jack and Arcee looked up to find the last person they thought would be there. “She’s hanging around here somewhere,” Airachnid finished

“Airachnid,” Arcee sethed.

“What’s she doing here?!” Jack yelled. Airachnid hit Arcee with her webs, trapping her against the floor. Silas and some of his goons walked into the room.

“Help them, please. They’re human like you, you can’t let Airachnid-” Arcee tried to plead with the scarred man, but he wasn’t listening.

“A few human lives are a small price to pay for a miracle of science like yourself,” Silas said, calloused to the prospect of being responsible for their deaths.

Silas looked over to one of his men, who took their

“Arcee!”

“You and I will have a private session later. Promise,”

“Gentlemen,”

“I’m still learning about humankind, but one thing is clear to me, Jack. You people care deeply about family. Therefore, the sweetest revenge I could possibly devise would be to make you watch as I take your family apart,”

“If you hurt my mother-”

“You remember how much I enjoy sport, don’t you, Jack?” Airachnid interrupted. “So, I’ll give you the opportunity to save your mother. I’ve stashed her close by, if you can rescue her before the stroke of twelve, I will let both of you go unharmed. Deal?”

“And if I can’t?”

“What do you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next part will be out soon, so don't worry. Also, I do really like reading other people's ideas about what's going on. Or if you don't have any idea just feel free to comment, I really like reading them, no pressure though.


	6. Airachnid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fowler really wishes he got paid more for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second part, I already have ideas for the next chapter so it should be out within the week, at least ideally.

Jack turned to Silas. He knew Silas wasn’t going to help, he didn’t care as long as he got what he wanted. ‘A communicator!’ Jack thought as he spotted the small device on the man's belt. 

“Please, don’t let her do this. You can let us go, we won’t tell anyone,” Jack pleaded as he went over Silas. He just needed an opening.

“Enough,” Silas said as he shoved the teen onto the floor, but Jack had already gotten what he wanted. As Silas pushed him, Jack Grabbed the communicator, letting the force of his fall bring it with him. Jack made sure to fall onto his side to cover it up.

“Yes, Jack, man up already. Six minutes,” Airachnid commented as she looked over to the large timer on the screen. Jack got up, making sure to cover up where he kept the device. He ran out the door, making it a decent distance before calling Fowler.

“Jack? It’s the middle of the night, what is it?” Fowler answered. 

“It’s MECH, they got mom, I’m at an old warehouse area just outside of Jasper. I need help, I can’t talk much, I gotta go find mom. Just bring back up as soon as you can, I’ll try to get my mom and me out of here,” Jack rambled as he hung up after. He didn’t have time to have a conversation. He just hoped Fowler understood his message and got here fast.

“Mom! Mom!” Jack ran around the area looking for her, he hoped that she could call back. The place was huge! It didn’t matter if what Airachnid said was true, ‘near’ was both vague and still encompassed a large area.

Jack turned a corner only to see the silhouette of Airachnid against the moon’s light. He thought about turning the other way when she pointed toward a crane. At first, Jack couldn’t really tell what was off with it, but then it hit him. It was his mom dangling from Airachnid’s webbing.

“Mom!” Jack yelled as he ran for her. He didn’t know how much time he had left, but he knew it couldn’t be much. “Mom!”

“Jack?” June started to wake up. The first thing she saw was Jack, He was climbing up a ladder to get to her. She tried to move but found she couldn’t. Then she realized that she shouldn’t, as she was dangling hundreds of feet in the air. She tried to think of how this happened. She was at work, heading back to her car when- Oh no. They got Jack involved?!

“Jack, what are you doing here?! Who are these people?! How did I get in this stuff?!” June pulled at whatever she was in again. It almost looked like a spider web.

“Don’t worry, mom, I’m gonna get you out,” Jack told her as he tried to pull her up onto the platform he was standing on. As he did that, June noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.

A Decepticon. 

“Jack, the robots are real?!” June whisper yelled as the femme got closer and closer to them.

“I beat your deadline!” Jack yelled as he turned to face the femme. Who was she? June had never seen her before, though to be fair June hadn’t seen any femmes.

“Afraid not, Jack. The task wasn’t to find your mother by midnight, you had to rescue her and,” She took a second to pause, “times up.”

She blasted the same web stuff that June was trapped in and knocked Jack onto the platform, trapping him there.

“Now, take a seat, sit back, and enjoy the horror show,” She said as she started to move around the two of them with her spider-like legs.

“You know, Jack, she’s your mom, why should I have all the fun? So you get to choose: agonizing or excruciating?” The femme laughed. “Jack, your mother wants to know. Don’t leave her dangling!”

Jack stayed quiet, what should he do?! He could try to blast her away, but what if his mom got caught in the crossfire? What if he blasted the entire machine down? He could probably blast her, but he couldn’t make sure it was just her that got blasted. He could kill all of them if he tried.

“Well, Jack, if you won’t decide I guess it’s ladys choice,” Airachnid said as she moved closer to June, stopping just short of her face.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” Jack said. This was all his fault. He was the reason Airachnid was here, that MECH had kidnapped her. And what was the point of having these dumbass powers if he couldn’t use them when he needed them?! 

Airachnid froze. She looked at June with an expression Jack couldn’t put a name to, but he knew he hadn’t seen it on her face before. In the split moment Airachnid stopped moving, they heard an engine getting closer.

Jack looked down to see Arcee driving in their direction, transforming and hitting Airachnid away. Jack took the moment to get himself free of the webbing and ran over to his mom.

“Jack, your motorcycle,” June stopped there as she watched the battle.

“I can explain, mom- wait, I already did,” Jack almost laughed. It wasn’t really funny, per se, but the stress of the situation was catching up to him. 

Arcee and AIrachnid fought, jumping from building to building, causing the platform that Jack and June were on to start leaning over.

“Jack!” 

“Mom!”

Jack pulled himself up onto the part that was still mostly even ground, where he heard the sound of a machine turning on. As he turned his head, he saw wet cement start to flow through the pipes, ending near where Arcee and Airachnid were fighting now.

Arcee hit Airachnid into something that looked almost like a bin, then landing on one of the pipes. Jack looked at the control panel in front of him. One of them had to move that pipe right? He took a chance and pulled on one, luckily he got it right. The piped moved over and poured cement onto Airachnid, cementing, pun intended, her in place for the moment.

Arcee was about to go in for the kill when she saw June was still dangling from the platform. Arcee briefly looked back at the femme that had caused her so much pain. She was already cracking the cement, but Arcee knew that Jack and his mom came before revenge.

“Hang on, June,” Arcee said as she started to climb up to June, but Airachnid had broken out of the cement. She knocked Arcee down and trapped her onto the ground with her webs. Just as Airachnid was going to hit Arcee a barrage of bullets pelted her. Jack looked up to the sky to see a whole squadron of helicopters.

“Thanks for coming, Agent Fowler,” Jack said as he pulled out the communicator.

“If I’d known cons were involved, I woulda called in Prime” Replied the likely grouchy government agent.

“That might have been too much for mom to handle in one night,” Jack said. He heard a sound of recognition of the other line as they continued to fire upon Airachnid. She turned to one of the helicopters, a beam of green light came from her optics, scanning the machine. In less than a minute she transformed into the same helicopter and flew out of there. 

Jack pulled his mom onto the platform and got her out of the webbing. They climbed down where they were greeted with government agents, one gave June a shock blanket. One of the men told them to sit down so they could wait for Fowler. It wasn’t long before he made his way over to them.

“Mrs.Darby, I’m special agent William Fowler. It’s time you knew the truth. For the past several months' Jack has been interning for me at the agency-” Fowler started, but Jack was done with the lying, and after what his mom had been through, he doubted she wanted to hear it.

“Agent Fowler, mom’s not gonna buy it,”

“He’s got that right,” June spoke up.

“Agent Fowler-” One of the government’s men came over.

“Let me guess, without a trace?” Fowler asked as he turned to look at the man. He nodded, Fowler walked away, cursing under his breath. Jack looked over as he heard Arcee walk over to them.

“And she would be your,” June started, but she didn’t seem sure how to end the sentence. 

“Motorcycle, guardian, Autobot, friend,” Jack listed.

“Call me Arcee,”

June stood and turned to face her. 

“Thank you, Arcee,” 

“I think it’s time for that ride you once made me promise,” Jack said as he turned to his mom.

They waited till the next day, that way all of them could rest and they could give the others prior warning to them bringing in another human to the base. They were mostly quiet as they drove over to the base.

June didn’t really know what she was expecting, but a military base inside a fake mesa right outside of Jasper wasn’t it. She was expecting a ground bridge, but driving through what looked to be a rock? That was new. 

As they drove in further it opened out into what could have been, and probably had been a missile silo. Miko and Raf were there, both of whom had come over once or twice, A large green one, a smaller yellow one, one who looked to be an ambulance, and then there he was.

Optimus Prime. 

June gave a small wave to the tall mech, but there were only two thoughts that were going through her head. One, ‘Optimus is kinda hot,’ and two, ‘HE would lose his shit if he knew about this.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: Should I try to keep the chapters the length they've been, or should I make them longer? I don't really care, but I want to know what you guys think.


	7. Rock Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was Miko's fault. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commitment? Don't know her.

“We’re supposed to be at a rock concert, but all I see is rock,” Miko complained as she kicked a loose rock from their perch on a large boulder.

Jack yawned. “Relax, Miko. The show doesn’t start for two hours,” He wasn’t entirely sure how Miko convinced him to come with her, but in the end, he guessed it didn’t matter. 

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to see Slash Monkey?” Miko asked as she turned to him. Jack let out an ‘Uhh’ before Miko cut him off. 

“Forever! And it’s their only U.S date!”

“There’s a shock, I mean who doesn’t love obscure, Bulgarian, shriek metal?” Miko probably had a response to that, but the sound of heavy footsteps drew their attention to Arcee and Bulkhead exiting the cave.

“By all appearances, the mine’s been stripped,” Arcee said as they entered out into the sunlight.

“But I’m getting a signal. It’s faint, but it’s definitely energon,” Bulkhead responded as he looked at the beeping handheld device.

“Are you sure it’s not Jack messing up the sensors?” Arcee asked, though whether it was a genuine question or not wasn’t clear.

“Whoa!” Miko’s relatively quiet exclamation made Jack look over at her, only to see her start to head toward the entrance. ‘She really does never listen, huh,’ Jack thought.

“It doesn’t make sense. This operation had been abandoned four, maybe five, years. And Decepticons never leave energon behind,” Arcee said.

“Uh, guys,” Jack called out to the bots and pointed to the cave entrance, where Miko had just made it a few feet in, letting out a ‘Cool!’.

“She went in. Unbelievable,” Arcee said aloud watching as the teen went further into the mine. 

“Really? Have you... met her?” Jack sarcastically asked. Miko never listened, especially when it came to keeping her away from danger.

Bulkhead groaned, “Miko, get back here,” He let out, sounding extremely tired of Miko running headfirst into danger, as he began to follow her.

“It would be kind of interesting to see. Ya know if it were-”

“Safe? A stripped mine can be structurally unstable, Jack,” Arcee cut him off. They had said it earlier, it was why he and Miko had waited outside for them to finish looking around for the energon signature. Also, Jack did occasionally mess up the sensors, so keeping him away from it allowed them to get a better reading on the energon that they were looking for.

“I promise to step lightly,” Jack said as a last-ditch effort to go in there. He knew it wasn’t the best idea, between the dangers of a cave-in or raw energon being hazardous to humans. Though he was pretty sure the last thing only applied to Miko at this point.

“Just,” Arcee started, she really didn’t want anything to happen to him because she let him into the mine, but how was him being in there any worse than her and Bulkhead walking around? They were many times his weight, and Bulkhead was known for breaking things. “Don’t tell your mom,” She finished. June would kill her, regardless of whether or not anything bad happened.

Jack walked into the cave with Arcee close behind. As they got further and further in they still couldn’t see any sign of Bulkhead or Miko. Still, the duo continued on. Arcee paused for a moment, Jack paused to look up at her.  
“Bulkhead? Bulkhead, do you read?” Arcee said as she tried to comm the green wrecker. “Scrap,” She cursed, “The mineral composition down here is causing interference.”

“Do you think Bulk and Miko are gonna be ok?”

“As long as Bulkhead doesn’t cause a cave-in they’ll be fine,” Arcee replied as they continued into the mine. They continued on, the cave remaining mostly the same. There was the occasional large area, all of them connected by bare hallways. ‘Arcee wasn’t kidding when she said they left nothing behind,’ Jack thought as he looked at the brown rock surrounding him.

As they continued inward Jack started to hear voices. At first, he just thought being underground was getting to him until he rounded the corner and caught sight of someone he had hoped never to see.

“You have ceased to be of use to me, Starscream, so you shall simply cease to be,” Megatron said as he pointed his fusion cannon at a kneeling Starscream. Jack stood there frozen, but Arcee hadn’t noticed the boys shock and continued to walk into the open, drawing the attention of the Decepticon lord.

Megatron shifted his aim to Arcee and began firing, walking slowly in their direction. Arcee grabbed Jack and jumped behind one of the support pillars holding up the room.

“Stay down,” She ordered as she ran out onto the other side, firing her own shots t the much larger mech. Jack watched as Starscream decided that this was the best time to escape, scrambling toward the exit and quickly transforming to fly out of the mine. 

“Starscream, you dare abandon me!?” Megatron yelled as he quickly readjusted his aim roared the seeker. He fired a few shots, but Jack couldn’t see if they hit their target or not. As Starscream left his range, Megatron turned to continue his barrage on Arcee.

Arcee was expecting it, and when he started to fire at her she fired at his arm, knocking it upward. While it did do the job of having Megatron not shoot Arcee, it had the unfortunate side effect of shooting the ceiling instead. The already unstable mine couldn’t handle a blast from the cannon, much less the multiple that Megatron had fired.

As the ceiling began to fall, Jack heard Arcee let out a ‘Scrap!’ Before she turned to try to run away fro the crumbling room. A large rock had fallen on top of Megatron, causing the floor to start to crumble as well. Arcee tried, but she was just too slow. Jack turned to try to run as well, but both of them fell into the dark hole.

Jack pushed off the rock that had fallen on top of him, coughing at the dust cloud it created. Jack didn’t really like having powers, but he wasn’t sure he would have survived that without them, so for the moment he was at least grateful.  
“Arcee? Arcee! Oh, scrap,” Jack cursed as he received no reply. It seemed the fall had separated them, and the mine wasn’t exactly small either.

Jack continued to call out for the others, but the only thing to answer was silence. He kept going until he got to what looked to be a drill the cons had used for mining when there was still energon.

“Well, that could come in handy,” Jack said to himself as she started to climb the large machine. He managed to get on top of the control panel. He looked at it for a moment, not really sure what he was supposed to do. He pushed a few different places on the screen.

It seemed luck was on his side, as the machine whirred to life. The controls for movement were simple and didn’t take him long to figure out. 

“Roll out,” Jack joked to himself. He started moving the drill forward, easily moving through the rock and stone in front of him. After a few minutes of drilling, he thought he had come across one of the bots, he pulled the drill back and looked into the hold he had just made, but it wasn’t one of the bots.

“I suppose helping those less fortunate would be completely out of the question?” Megatron asked? It wasn’t really a question, or at least not one he thought the titan wanted an answer to. The red light from his optics had Jack frozen. What was he going to do? Megatron had an idea for that.  
“If that is the case, you might as well use your drill to finish me. I guarantee you will never have a better opportunity than right now,” The booming voice shook Jack as he spoke, but Jack wasn’t sure if it was the voice itself or just how nerve-wracking it seemed to be talking to the Decepticon leader.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Think of the glory. Seize the day! Optimus would,” Megatron stated, though Jack didn’t really understand why Megatron was trying to get him to kill him, he wasn’t going to let the tyrant get what he wanted. Even if it seemed like that was death at the moment. 

“No. He wouldn’t, not like this,” Jack moved to turn the drill and drive it away from the warlord. He knew that he would get out, it was only a matter of time. He had to find the others, fast. 

“I will be sure to share the details of our little conversation with Optimus. The day I rip out his spark!” Jack could hear Megatron call out to him and he drove away. He briefly wondered if he should turn the drill around and give him what he wanted, but he decided against it. Because he was right, Optimus wouldn’t do it. 

Jack continued on until he heard a banging sound. He briefly panicked, thinking that Megatron had already gotten himself free, but the sound was coming from the opposite direction that the Decepticon had been. Jack drilled through a wall of fallen rocks ad found Miko and Bulkhead on the other side.

“Jack, get Miko out of here now!” Bulkhead yelled as a creaking sound escaped his arms. Jack looked up to see that Bulkhead was holding up the entire ceiling, if his arms failed, well, there wouldn’t be much left for Arcee to find.

“Come on,” Jack jumped onto the wheel bumper and held out his hand for Miko to grab. Miko looked back at Bulkhead, who was clearly straining to hold up the boulder above them.

“Go, Miko!” Bulkhead called out to her, making her finally take Jack's hand and get onto the drill. Jack went back to the control panel as Miko stayed on the wheel cover for a minute or two.

“We can’t leave Bulkhead! Arcee will save him won’t she?” Miko looked for confirmation from Jack as she joined him on the control panel.

“You and I just need to find a way out of here before Megatron digs himself free,” Jack stayed focused on driving the drill. He didn’t know how much time they had left. The bots could hold him off for at least a little bit, but them? Jack only survived because Megatron was stuck and he had the drill. If they came across him while Megatron had his arms? They’d be dead, so so dead.

“Megatron’s here!” Miko yelled as she turned to Jack, only for their collective attention to be caught by the other side of the small room they found themselves in. Jack held his breath, only to let it out when he realized it was Arcee.  


Miko quickly explained what happened to Bulkhead, Jack interjected to tell her that they had to hurry. They were on a timetable that they didn’t know how tight it was. Arcee responded they way Jack knew she would. She told them to head out of the mine and wait for her and Bulkhead, if Megatron came out before them, they were to hide and call the base once he was gone.

They didn’t have to hide, as after about ten or so minutes the both of them walked out of the mine. They all turned to look a the cave entrance, one collective thought on their minds

“We could finish him, here and now,” Arcee was the one to voice it first.

“Shame we didn’t bring any grenades,” Bulkhead lamented with a gruff tone.

“Would Optimus... Finish them?” Jack asked. Had he made the right decision? Should he have used the drill?

“No, he probably wouldn’t. Not like this,” Arcee seemed to paraphrase what he himself had told Megatron.

“But Optimus wouldn’t rescue them either right?” Miko asked. They all remained quiet. 

“Let’s go home,” Bulkhead said as he turned and walked away from the mine, the three others close behind. They left Miko’s question unanswered because they knew the answer. But they weren’t Optimus.

Megatron trudged his way out of the mine, it seemed that Starscream had taken his chance to flee, one of the smartest moves the seeker had done in a few millennia. He thought back on the human who had discovered him. He was just like Optimus, blinded by his morals and principals, even if it meant bringing greater good to his allies. 

Maybe that’s why the boy seemed so familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this time I swear I will get the next chapter out soon. Probably. Hopefully.


	8. One Shall Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was the last one to deserve this. Jack wished it had been him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this last Monday lol

“Pass,” Jack ruled as Raf scrolled through a conspiracy website for alien encounters. “Kid in a costume. Balloon. Nope,” He continued. ‘You’d think at people would at least think things through before posing a picture that’s clearly explainable,’ Jack thought to himself. He figured that the world was full of people who didn’t think things through, this was just a less harmful, more stupid ways to get that out of one’s system he guessed. 

“Uh, hold,” Jack said as Raf stopped on a picture of Bee, with the driver's seat enhanced showing the lack of a driver. “The camera sure loves Bee.” 

“What can you do?” Miko asked, “When you're a superstar, you're paparazzi bait,”

“Wait, is that Bumblebee?” Ratchet looked up from his work to see what the three human children were doing, but he didn’t expect to see a picture of the scout on a website.

“On a conspiracy website, where users post evidence of close encounters,” Raf explained, “But we have it under control, Ratchet. We just scrub and replace Bee with…” Raf typed in a few commands until a small video was in the place where Bee’s picture had been.

“Mars cat says, ‘Take me to your feeder!’” Ratchet let out a short, but genuine, laugh at the dumb joke. The three humans looked over at the medic with shock.

“Ratchet actually laughed?” Miko asked, clearly entirely sure she heard him right. He was always so grumpy, or he was working. They hadn’t heard him actually laugh, maybe out of sarcasm, but not really.

“Uh…” Ratchet also seemed to be at a loss for words.

“Um, Optimus, do you want to see something funny?” Jack figured that if it could make Ratchet laugh, maybe it could at least make Optimus smile. Or just a little happier looking than he normally did.

“No,” Optimus replied, barely looking away from the screen for a second before going back to work.

“Don't take it personally. Primes are built that way,” Arcee said as she and Bulkhead walked into the room.

“Never seen Optimus laugh, cry, or lose his cool,” Bulkhead added.

“While Optimus certainly keeps his emotions in check, I've known him far longer than any of you have, and he was different before he was made a Prime,” Ratchet said, looking over at the back of the mech who didn’t realize he was being talked about, or just didn’t acknowledge it.

“Optimus wasn't always a Prime?” Raf asked.

“On Cybertron, one isn't born into greatness. Rather, one must earn it,” Ratchet tried to elaborate, though Jack wasn’t sure that was a great way to put it. It only half answered the question.

“So, different how?” Miko asked, “We talkin' party animal?”

“No, no. Optimus was more like,” Ratched paused to think, his optics glancing over the tallest of the three humans, “Jack.”

“What?” Jack looked over at the medic. Him? Like Optimus? “I'm nothing like Opt--” He started to say but the voice of Fowler from the speakers grabbed everyone’s attention.

“Prime!” His voice almost echoing through the tall ceilings of the base. “Those techies my department's been tracking, we figured it was MECH on account of the stealth tactics. Until moments ago when a security feed at the Pennington ebbs particle collider captured this,” An image popped up on the screen, showing a familiar face. Or a lack thereof.

“Soundwave,” Jack said as the three humans walked over to get a better view.

“Raf can swap that out for you with a funny cat,” Miko joked.

“The 'Con without a face made off with a cutting-edge phase conductor,” Fowler continued on without acknowledging Miko. “Here's a punch list of everything else we've confirmed stolen to date,” A list popped up on the screen, most of which Jack didn’t really know what they were, but he was sure one of those things was in ‘The Avengers’.

“Plasma injector, neutron shield, tesseract?” Ratchet read off the list. “There's only one thing missing if they are intending to build,” his sentence trailed off

“A space bridge,” Optimus finished the thought for him. Jack thought back to the last time the Cons built a space bridge. Not fond memories, he had to say. It was when he met the bots, but the whole ‘resurrecting an army of the dead to invade Earth’ part wasn’t as peachy. Jack couldn’t help thinking ‘What now?’ The bots said that Megatron didn’t have any more dark energon, so what was he building a space bridge for?

“Prime, the 'Cons really stepped in it this time,” Fowler had called the bots back about the Con situation not even a full week after the last time. “They hit a U.S. military lab. Our boys in green will fend them off till your team shows.”

“Agent Fowler, I fear that Megatron's desperation may be at its zenith, and you know that I cannot condone even a single human casualty,” Optimus stated firmly. Fowler sighed before ordering the evacuation of all personnel.

Jack was glad that Miko didn’t run through the bridge this time. He knew that most of the time she didn’t mean any real harm to anyone, but she’d gotten both herself, the bots, and Jack specifically in very dangerous situations with her lack of planning.

“Bumblebee, the team may require backup,” Jack could hear as Ratchet commed the scout, “They are three clicks north from your current position, just off the highway. If you drop Raf at the exit ramp, I can bridge him back to base from there.”

He couldn’t hear what Bee’s response was, but if he had he knew he wouldn’t be able to understand it. Jack briefly wondered if Raf being able to understand Bee was sort of similar to his powers, but he ignored the thought. There was a large difference between being able to understand a seemingly code like speech from an alien and being able to blast said aliens hundreds of feet.

“Ratchet, bridge us back now!” Jack heard Optimus’ baritone voice call out.

“We must have an Autobot down,” Ratchet said solemnly as she activated the ground bridge. Jack looked at Miko who returned his look back. They both went over to the railing to see who was injured. Arcee was the first to walk through, with Bee not far behind her. Both looked fine a first until Jack caught sight of what Arcee was holding, or rather who she was holding.

“Raf?” Jack asked in shock, when Ratchet said that they had a bot down he was understandably upset, but Raf? Thinking back he realized that Bee was supposed to drop Raf off for Ratchet to bridge him back to the base, but it seemed Bee didn’t get the chance to.

“No!” Miko said, clearly in the same mindset as Jack about the situation.

“What happened?” Ratchet went into doctor mode, walking over to Arcee to get a better look at the boy. 

“Megatron,” Arcee answered harshly. ‘Who else would it be?’ Crossed Jack’s mind, but he kept it to himself. It could have been another Con, but it seemed even worse knowing that it was their leader.

“Quickly, into my laboratory,” Ratchet rushed Arcee to bring him there. She sat him on a metal medical table where Jack and Miko ran to be by his side.

“Rafael isn't responding,” Ratchet said, but his speech was bordering on rambling as he rushed to figure out what to do. “We must run diagnostics of his assemblage -- eh, vital statistics,” He said as he picked up a couple of large metal tools from his workbench before looking at them. “Ergh, my tools -- they're all wrong!” Ratchet yelled as he threw them across the room.

“We need to call my mom,” Jack said as he took a=out his phone and walked away from the table for the moment. Ratchet may be a competent medic, but he didn’t know humans, or at least not human anatomy. Jack knew a little, but only what he had learned from his mom. Miko was pretty much out of the question, and it's not like any of the other bots would have looked into human medicine if Ratchet hadn’t.

His mom was pretty much the only option. She may not be a doctor, but she was a nurse, and it’s not like the government handed out nursing jobs to anyone who applied. Maybe she didn’t have all of the knowledge and years of studying of a doctor, but she was what they had.

“Your mother may be a nurse, but does she know anything about the effects of Energon on the human body?” Ratchet turned to look at Jack.

“Wh-- do you know anything about the human body?” Jack retorted. It seemed to have done the trick as Ratchet held back anything else he was going to say as Jack turned back to his phone.

“Mom, it's urgent!” he quickly did the rundown of what happened, or at least of what he knew had happened. She assured him she was on her way, and Ratchet prepared a ground bridge for her to get there faster.

“Mom, thank --” Jack started as June got out of her car, practically slamming the door behind her.

“Grab my bag,” June cut him off as she jogged over to where Rafael laid. Ratchet was kneeling beside him, doing some sort of scan. Jack grabbed the bag as fast as he could and ran over to catch up with her.

“Measuring the extent of the absorption should determine the proper course of treatment,” Ratchet proposed.

“If I don't get this boy stabilized now, he will not leave this table alive. Do you understand me?” June turned to yell at the medic. She knew that he had to be a good doctor for the bots for them to have survived this long against the sheer number of the Decepticons, but Raf was human. She doubted he knew much of anything when it came to his health.

Bee let out a series of distressed and angry beeps before hitting a wall. Arcee quickly moved and kept him there for the moment, facing her.

“Bee, listen. You think I don't know how it feels to watch a partner,” She paused, choosing ehr choice of words carefully, “Harmed? Revenge won't help Raf right now. You need to keep your emotions in check.”

Bee seemed to understand, at least Jack thinks he did as he didn’t have another outburst after that. Ratchet had backed up, giving June room to work and manning the comms. Neither Optimus nor Bulkhead had come through the bridge, both of them working to prevent the cons from getting the last thing they needed.

“Ratchet, how is Rafael?” Optimus asked him.

“It is too soon to know,”

“He's in good hands,” Optimus tried to reassure the old mech, but it didn’t have the intended effect.

“Not mine, Optimus. Curse my cybertronian pride. We've accepted these humans into our lives, yet I bothered to learn so little of their science or medicine,” Ratchet cursed himself. How could he have been so foolish? Had nurse Darby not learned of their secret, what position would Raf be in now? How could he have not thought of the possibility of any of their human charges getting hurt?

“Pull yourself together, old friend. Rafael needs you,”

“And I have grown to need him,” Raf may have been Bumblebee's human charge, but Raf helped Ratchet on more than one occasion. Though young he may be, Raf was leagues ahead of him when it came to handling human technology. That alone had helped Ratchet make strides in work he had been held back in due to technical difficulties.

“Lock on to my coordinates and activate the ground bridge,” Optimus ordered, and Ratchet quickly moved to activate the ground bridge.

June was at a loss. He had been hit by Megatron, though not directly, it was already a miracle he survived. What was she supposed to do? Taking him to the hospital wouldn’t do anything, this wasn’t like the flu or a gunshot. It was a blast from an alien for Christ’s sake!

Ratchet hadn’t stayed at the ground bridge for long, going back to the results of the scan he had run on Rafael earlier.

That’s odd, I'm not getting any readings,” Ratchet mumbled as he looked at the data. Jack looked up to the medic as he seemed to have an epiphany.

“How could I not have seen this?! Rafael's been infected with Dark Energon,” His grave tone and everyone’s prior experience with the substance, apart from June, cause a pull in their attention. 

“If Dark Energon is devouring Raf from the inside out, we must expel it and fast, the only possible way I know, Ratchet paused as he quickly grabbed another tool from his table. “I need Energon!”

“Wait,” June said as she turned to Ratchet. “You said Energon was devastating to humans.”

“Under normal circumstances, quite,” Ratchet explained. “But I am relying upon the dark matter currently invading Rafael's body to meet it head-on,” He used a device to get energon from Bumblebee before turning and pointing to a glass chamber. “I need him over here now!”

June and Jack moved quickly to roll Raf into the machine. As they exited the glass doors closed behind them. Jack turned to look at what was happening, but was blinded by a bright light that he assumed was the energon dispersing through the confined space. When the light faded the doors opened and everyone rushed in. June took Raf’s arm in her hand as he started to stir.

“Pulse rate is stabilizing,” June said as Raf opened his eyes. He looked around at the group that surrounded his medical bed. 

“Bee,” Raf managed to get out as he slowly became more and more awake.

“Optimus, we did it,” Ratchet almost whispered, turning to where he thought the Prime was, only to be met with air.

Sorry to disappoint, but the boss bot said he had to go destroy old bucket head,” Bulkhead said beside the power source they had stolen back from the cons.

“Bulkhead, you let Optimus face Megatron alone?!” Arcee scolded him like he was a child.

“I didn't have a choice,”

“It could be a trap,” Ratchet said as he turned to the terminal “We need to get a fix on his location,”

“I'm locked onto Optimus' signal,” Ratchet took a second, looking closely at the readings he was getting.

“Wait, how is this possible?”

“What? What is it?” Arcee turned to see what was wrong.

“We need to get Optimus out of there now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been done for over a week, but I ended up forgetting about it whoops my bad. Ima go work on the next one now.


End file.
